7 Days To A Flat Stomach; Part 2
Today’s post is Part 2 of last week’s guest post by T.J. of Result Based Training Australia (RBT). If you’ve been following my Woman Incredible blog and Facebook page then you’ll know that RBT is not only Melbourne’s premier fitness company and where I am even personally trained, but is also the home of my new office and the venue for all of my events, including my Woman Incredible Transformation Day!
Okay, guys, so as you will remember last week we covered days 1-4 of what it REALLY takes to get that flat stomach we all dream about. Here’s a recap:
Day 1: Metabolism busting circuits
Day 2: Understanding your hormones
Day 3: Supplements for fat loss
Day 4: Could you have Syndrome X?
This week we will be covering nutrition imbalance, secret spices for fat loss, meal timings, and anaerobic cardio for optimal fat MELTING! Let’s get stuck into it.
flat stomach day 5: the adverse effects of nutrition imbalance
Bad nutrition can affect you both mentally and physically. A bad diet could lead to serious complications starting with bad cholesterol and plaques in the arteries leading to heart diseases, kidney malfunctioning, stomach ulcers, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and even cancer. Poor nutrition combined with a inactive life is what really makes these health issues prevalent in people.
The very real dangers are mostly a result fast food, processed food and acidosis (excess acid in the body’s fluids).
Whether you eat less or more would be inconsequential if you eat fast food full of carbohydrates, saturated fats, sugar and cholesterol in levels way above what is recommended. Processed foods bring about a lot of diseases because of the preservatives, chemicals and additives that they contain and they also contain more processed sugar causing diabetes and a large amount of trans and saturated fat, which in excess can cause obesity. You need to concentrate on fresh food, vegetables rather than fruits and the intake of processed food.
The Truth About Fruit And Fructose
The carbohydrates that we eat are made up of chains of glucose, when glucose enters our bodies; insulin is released to regulate the glucose in bloodstream. Most fruits contain fructose, which is a sugar that is processed in our liver, when we eat too much fructose – including too much fruit – the liver fails to process the excess sugars.
The excess sugars then get converted into triglycerides in the bloodstream which is a big no-no for our hearts and our waistlines!
Above and beyond all of that, appetite-regulating hormones aren’t initiated because fructose bypasses the body signal systems AND insulin resistance is facilitated. Insulin spikes or hyper insulinemia, which leads to weight gain, is also caused when there are very high levels of blood glucose in the body
It is also to be remembered that those who don’t have an active life or don’t exercise are more vulnerable to the high fructose intake.
flat stomach day 6: spices in your food and food timings
Eating the same bland food day in and day out is one of the things that let most people down. If you are just eating the same boring meals over and over you are going to go crazy and start to eat your way through Big Macs, ice-cream and junk food….and we can’t have that.
By adding some spices to the meal plan ranging from chilli, curry powder, cajun and tumeric (which is my personal favourite), you won’t only make the food taste better but these spices (tumeric especially) helps with those nasty insulin levels too.
Be wary of the spices with high sugar quantities and try to get the spice in a more natural state rather than the liquid goop they now sell. Spices such as chillies have also been scientifically proven to raise the metabolism and boost the fat burning process.
Skipping Meals
Skipping meals means you are far more likely to experience low blood sugar symptoms and the inevitable carbohydrate cravings that go with it, and we all know by now what these carbohydrates will do to us.
Even if you are not at all concerned with building muscle, protein should be of primary importance and I have found that eating some protein (the amount is hugely dependent upon your activity levels, specific goals, and current muscle mass) every 2-3 hours makes an enormous difference to losing body FAT as opposed to just body-weight.
flat stomach day 7: anaerobic cardio
Here is one of my favourite studies of all time which I always give to those people who try and argue with me about how they must be doing long bouts of cardio to drop fat. Read below and simply see the scientific facts behind short Tabata style interval work and fat loss.
This Japanese study compares a High Intensity Tabata Group to a 70% of VO2 max moderate intensity group. The moderate intensity group did increase their VO2 max by about 10% without a concurrent improvement in anaerobic capacity. The high intensity group improved their VO2 max by 14% and their anaerobic capacity by 28%.
The high intensity group actually improved both anaerobic and aerobic capacity at the same time. The most alarming of factors is that the moderate intensity group had to train for 5 hours a week for 6 weeks to get their results where as the high intensity group experienced better results over the same 6 week period by working for only 20 minutes a week. Five sessions a week for just 4 minutes at a time that has to make you think about how much time you’re wasting on the treadmill?
So there you have it folks; 7 days to a flat belly! Here’s your recap, just to make sure you don’t have any excuses about forgetting the first 4 days:
Day 1: Metabolism busting circuits
Day 2: Understanding your hormones
Day 3: Supplements for fat loss
Day 4: Could you have Syndrome X?
Day 5: The adverse effects of nutrition imbalance
Day 6: Spices for fat loss, and meal timings
Day 7: Anaerobic cardio
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